"I would rather talk to you, too," Imogen smiled. "My good old friend can be very wearisome. But it was thoughtless of me to have brought her on this way."
They rested for a little while on their rock, looking down into the distance that was, indeed, worth any amount of climbing. And afterward, when they reached the fairyland where the laurel drifted through the pine woods, and as she quoted "Wood-Notes" to him and pointed out to him the delicate splendors of the polished green, the clear, cold pink, on a background of gray rock, Imogen could but feel her little naughtiness well justified. It was delightful to be there in solitude with Sir Basil, and the sense of sympathy that grew between her and this supplanter of her father's was strange, but not unsweet. It wasn't only that she could help him, and that that was always a claim to which one must respond, but she liked helping him.
On the downward way, a little tired from the rapidity of her ascent, she often gave her hand to Sir Basil as she leaped from rock to rock, and they smiled at each other without speaking, already like the best of friends.
That evening, as she was going down to dinner, Imogen met her mother on the stairs. They spoke little to each other during these days. Imogen felt that her neutrality of attitude could best be maintained by silence.
"Mrs. Potts came back," her mother said, smiling a little, and, Imogen fancied, with the old touch of timidity that she remembered in her. "She said that you took her on a most fearful climb."
"What foolishness, poor dear Mrs. Potts! I took her along the upper path."
"The upper path! Is there an upper path?" Mrs. Upton descended beside her daughter. "I thought that it was the usual path that had proved too much for her."
"I wanted them to see the view from the rock," said Imogen; "I forgot that poor Mrs. Potts would find it too difficult a climb."
"Oh, I remember, now, the rock! That is a difficult climb," said Mrs.
Upton.
Imogen wondered if her mother guessed at why Mrs. Potts had been taken on it. She must feel it of good augury, if she did, that her daughter should already like Sir Basil enough to indulge in such an uncharitable freak. Imogen felt her color rise a little as she suspected herself and her motives revealed. It was not that she wasn't quite ready to own to a friendship with Sir Basil; but she didn't want friendship to be confused with condonation, and she didn't like her mother to guess that she could use Mrs. Potts uncharitably.